Maybe if I wasn’t in such a bad mood already, I wouldn’t have cared. But I was in a ripe fucking mood, and that shit wasn’t cool.
Was anyone planning on telling me about this playlist thing?
Or letting me listen to them?
“It’s not a big deal…” Ash offered, off my look.
“Yeah, it’s easy,” Danica said. “I mean, it took me like an hour to put mine together…” She faded off.
“Youmade one?”
“Um. Yes?”
Nice. Danica wasn’t even in the band.
Ash looked like he was about to say something else, but then some dudes came by to clear our table off the dance floor, and we all got displaced.
The volume on the music went up. I ended up over by one of the bars with Lucas and some other guys from Trey’s crew.
Summer swung by with a gin and juice for me, even though I said I didn’t want one. I had a few sips to be polite. I introduced her to Jordan.
I made small talk with Brody.
Then instead of hanging with my band for the rest of the night as I’d planned to—you know, before Courteney showed up and bid on me—I thanked my friends for coming, congratulated Trey on the success of the event, and headed out into the night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Courteney
Xander came home while I was packing my things.
He walked right into the poolhouse without knocking. It was dark inside except for in the bedroom, where I had the lights blazing while I packed. He came to stand in the bedroom doorway, watching me.
He wasn’t wearing the dress clothes he’d been wearing onstage at the club. He’d changed into his usual clothes. But he obviously hadn’t stuck around very long after the auction was done.
He’d come after me, maybe.
I ignored him. I stood by the bedroom closet, pulling my clothes off the hangers and rolling them up, tucking them into the suitcase laid out on the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing. Haven’t you ever seen a girl pack before?” I tossed him a dirty look, maybe to remind him of the way this summer from hell had started—in this room, with me packing his shit into garbage bags for him.
He took a step into the room, cautiously. Like I was some wild animal that might bite him at any second.
Which I might.
“Whyare you packing?”
“Because I’m moving out, obviously.”
“And going where?”
“I’ll go back to my parents’ place for a while, and then I’ll figure it out.” I threw him the barest of glares. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“What about Cary?” he asked carefully. “I thought you were here to try to help him.”
“Yeah, well. He’s been paying me to do a job that doesn’t even exist, so something tells me he doesn’t really give a fuck where I am. And I can still look in on him from wherever I am in town.”
